Guarente To Speak On Aging At Institute For Advanced Study

Leonard P. Guarente, Novartis Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will speak on “Regulation of Aging by SIR2 in Yeast, Worms, and Mammals” on February 11 at 4:30 p.m. in Wolfensohn Hall on the campus of the Institute for Advanced Study.

Guarente studies the molecular mechanisms of aging in various organisms and their possible relevance to aging in humans. Aging being a biological process common to organisms from yeast to humans, Guarente’s research asks whether the genetics of aging is shared as well.

Guarente is founder and director of Elixir Pharmaceuticals, a genomics-based drug discovery company developing a new category of pharmaceuticals that treat and/or prevent the broad spectrum of diseases that accompany aging.

In addition to over 160 articles in scientific publications such as Nature and Science, Guarente’s work on aging has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and New York Times. He is the author, most recently, of Ageless Quest: One Scientist’s Search for Genes That Prolong Youth (2003).

Guarente is a member of the American Academy of Microbiology, and a former Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar. Elected to the American Academy of Microbiology in 1998, Guarente was named Investigator of 2001 by the Academy of the American Society for Healthy Aging. Among other editorial and advisory positions, he is on the editorial board of Genes and Development, Trends in Genetics, and the Journal of Anti-Aging Medicine.

He earned his B.S. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in molecular genetics at Harvard University. A Jane Coffin Childs Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard, he joined the MIT faculty in 1981.

The lecture is sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Study’s Center for Systems Biology, led by Arnold Levine, Visiting Professor in the School of Natural Sciences. For information, call (609) 734-8118.